May I offer you anything to drink, Mr. MacCraig?” asked Lucy, Sophia’s housekeeper, as she ushered him into the formal living room.

“Nae, thanks, Lucy, I’m fine.” Alistair entered the room and walked toward one of the superb paintings hanging on the wall to distract himself from his rapidly beating heart.

“Mrs. Leibowitz will be down in a few minutes.”

“Thanks,” he said again, nodding in acknowledgment, without taking his eyes off the red-and-pink Rothko.

He looked around and his eyes stopped on the piano. He could still hear his mother playing. He walked up to it and sat down on the bench. Running his hands over the keyboard, a sad smile curved his lips and he lost himself playing Schubert’s Ave Maria as he remembered his mother’s lessons.

He was so caught up in the piece that he didn’t hear Sophia open the door, nor see her eyes tear and the effort it took for her to compose herself before walking up to him.

While he played, he forgot about all his worries and doubts about Sophia’s distancing herself from him.

When he did look up at her face, the smile she gave him held so much love that he kept playing without saying a word. He scooted on the bench, making room for her.

The last notes sounded in the room and Sophia shifted on the bench to enlace his waist with her arms and put her head on his muscular back, murmuring, “So beautiful, Alistair Connor, it makes me want to cry.”

He pulled her onto his lap, cradling her head in the hollow of his neck and hugged her. His voice was heavy with emotion when he spoke in her hair. “I don’t ever want to make you cry. I want to make you the happiest woman in the world.”

He was acutely aware of her breath on his neck, of her silky hair brushing his arm, and of her supple body ensconced on his chest.

They stayed there in quiet communion until he dipped her a little and looked into her eyes, asking, “Are you sure about what you told me on Sunday?”

“We talked about so many—ah.” She combed back the locks that had fallen over his left eye. “Yes, I’m sure, Alistair Connor. Once my word is given, I don’t go back on it.”

He hauled her back onto his chest and squeezed her fiercely. Lowering his guard, he whispered in her ear, “I thought you had changed your mind.”

She sighed and her eyes searched his. “Do you want to know what I thought during these days and nights we didn’t meet? The whole truth?”

I knew it. He steeled himself for the blow. “Always.”

“You have been poisoned. The poison is still inside you. You must look for the antidote.”

He was puzzled by how Sophia’s mind worked. He was waiting for her to say that yes, she had avoided him; that yes, she wanted kids, and yes, that he wasn’t good enough for her. “You, Sophia, you are the antidote.”

“You’ve been hurt too deep, Alistair Connor. And you need to rebuild your inner strength and your faith in yourself. You need to work out these feelings of hate and guilt.” She shook her head lightly and he halted her movement by gripping her chin, but Sophia wouldn’t be stopped. She transferred his hand to her cheek and leaning on it, she kissed his wrist, before saying, “Will you consider therapy?”

She is serious. “For you, I—”

“No. Not for me. For you. Do it for you, Alistair Connor. Please?”

He blinked as she made another crack in his already broken defense walls. The question hung in the room as they looked in each other’s eyes.

Alistair capitulated first. He dared not contradict such a simple request from the love of his life. “Very well. Tomorrow morning I’ll ask Tavish Uilleam for a referral.”

A knock on the door interrupted their conversation.

Sophia stood up and fixed her wrap dress. “Come in.”

“Mrs. Leibowitz, dinner is served,” Lucy informed as she pushed the door.

“Thanks, Lucy.” Sophia took Alistair’s hand. “Come. I’ve ordered a typical Brazilian dish for us.”

“Feijoada with caipirinha?” he asked, licking his lips.

“At this late hour?” she laughed. “Absolutely not.”

“Churrasco, then?”

“No, Alistair Connor. A moqueca bahiana. A very tasty stew made with fish, shrimp, lobsters, and crab cooked in a traditional clay pot with coconut milk and palm oil. But I don’t put the palm oil in when I serve it to foreigners.” She sneered at him, “It’s a bit strong for delicate stomachs.”

“Delicate!”

She shrieked happily when he bent down and lifted her onto his shoulder. “I’m a Highlander, woman. I’m going to ask the chef at Craigdale to prepare Haggis and black pudding for you next time.”

“You silly Highlander. Offal is a traditional dish in Brazil’s Northeast.”

He put her back on her feet in the dining room and inhaled the spicy aroma that wafted from the bubbling stew. “Mmm. This smells good.” He pulled her chair for her and bowed. “My lady.” That’s exactly what you will be, Sophia. My lady.

* * *

She threw her head back and laughed. “I don’t believe it, Alistair Connor. You did what?”

He smiled. “Well, he was spying. Tavish Uilleam was at that age where his hormones were getting the best of him. So I tied him to the post in the farthest bay and closed the stable door. I forgot to untie him after I finished…er…”

“Your tumble.” She laughed, imagining a teenage Tavish tied up and locked up with a horse.

“Aye. Then I walked the girl back to her house. She lived in the village near Craigdale. I headed home and took a shower. It was around one o’clock in the morning when I woke up with my father shaking me by the shoulders and my mother screaming my ears off.” He laughed. “When they found Tavish Uilleam sleeping, freezing his ass off in his pajamas, all tied up with ropes, I thought my mother was going to kill me that day.”

She was laughing so hard that she was hugging her stomach. “You were not right in the head.”

He shook his head, smiling. “I would have done the same to Alice if she sneaked a peek too.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“I would.” He shrugged and planted a kiss on her lips. “But she knew better than to go to the stables late at night. Girls don’t misbehave like boys.”

“It depends.”

He shook his head firmly. “Nae, girls are much more obedient, less bold.”

Oh, yeah? I’m going to show you more obedient and less bold, Alistair Connor. Sophia lifted her glass, drank it dry, and put it on the side table. “Do you know what I want?”

“Nae.”

She crawled on the sofa until she was straddling him and said bluntly, “I want to fuck you.”

“I thought it was the other way around,” he laughed.

“Hmm?” She started unbuttoning his shirt and pulling it off as she wiggled her hips, rubbing herself on his waking arousal. “I want your cock in my pussy.”

“What!” He roared with laughter. “You’re tipsy. You don’t talk so dirty.”

“It’s the company,” she teased. She licked her way down, from his collarbone to his nipple, while she opened his jeans and stroked his semi-hard cock through his underwear. “Well, has your cock ever been deep in a tipsy pussy before?” she provoked him with a devilish smile.

His blood boiled with lust. “I would never refuse a beautiful lady with such a request.”

He took over the situation as his hand pulled her against him and he licked her lips.

A low growl built in his chest as she responded with gradually bolder parries of her tongue without really engaging in a kiss until she sucked his lower lip and nipped it gently with her teeth.

Alistair pulled away slowly and drank in the sight of her face softly flushed with desire and her mouth gleaming wet.

“Up.” He lifted her from his lap and sat her on the sofa, stood, and walked to the door, locking it.

Back to the sofa, he shoved down his jeans and underwear, and fully naked, sat again, commanding, “Strip for me.”

Sophia felt empowered. Her hands toyed with the ties of her dress before she unlaced the belt and whirled it around herself. The wrap dress opened to one side and she watched as his half-arousal stirred and hardened with lust.

Alistair flexed his hands, willing his arms to stay at his sides, as the sparks between them grew.

Sophia couldn’t help her wicked smile as she danced slowly, playing with the dress, baring just one of her breasts. Her lacy bra didn’t hide a thing. She opened the other side of the dress and, turning her back to him, shrugged it off, letting it fall slowly to the floor.

Sophia looked boldly at Alistair over her shoulder. Wearing only a bra and panties she worked her hips in agonizingly slow circles, as she moved her hands along her body.

He propped his elbows on his knees and watched as she swayed her hips to one side and then to the other, the smooth skin of her buttocks driving him mad. His fingers itched to touch her, but he controlled himself.

Sophia danced with her back to him as she lowered first one and then the other bra strap and disengaged it from behind. She began to caress herself, her hands wandering leisurely over her ass, hips and waist.

And then she turned and he sucked in his breath as she cupped her breasts and her thumbs toyed with the stiff nipples. Fuck, she’s beautiful.

Her fingers dipped down in her thong, her eyes closed and a small moan left her mouth.

That did it for him.

“Enough.” He picked her up by the waist and pressed her back on the sofa. Divesting her of her flimsy thong, he settled on the floor between her thighs and used the skills he knew she liked most, just small tantalizing touches of his tongue and fingers, to bring her to the edge of her orgasm.

When she gasped and shivered on the brink of a climax, he sat at the sofa again and lowered her slowly on his arousal, watching her as she threw her head back in pleasure.

“You feel so good.” When he was fully settled within her, he sucked a breast into his mouth.

Sophia thrust her hands in his hair, keeping his mouth firmly in place as she moved in circles on his lap. Soft gasps and moans of pleasure escaped her throat.

He slid a finger along the crease of her ass, probing softly with a feathery touch and testing her reaction. She tightened, and then to his surprise, writhed down on it, whispering in his ear, “Do it.”

“Relax,” he ordered, and plunged his finger slowly into her, watching her face.

Sophia’s mouth opened in a silent gasp and she pulled him by the hair to her breast.

He thrust his hips up in time with his finger, and he took her mouth in a hungry kiss.

She tasted herself on his tongue. That excited her wildly. And she started to ride him with fierce movements.

“Please,” she gasped on his lips as he pushed his another finger into her.

“Come for me.”

Mere seconds under his expert ministrations and she was climaxing, her head thrown back, her hands clenched in his hair.

He slammed hard, fully penetrating into her once more and came, pouring himself in her.

He squeezed her gently in his arms, and his hands stroked her back. As she drifted down from her physical high, he pulled the blanket draped over the sofa arm and covered her back.

For the past three days, Alistair thought he had lost Sophia. Her breath fanning his neck soothed his fears.

“I love you, you know?” he whispered in her hair.

“Mmm,” she purred.

One day, Sophia. One day soon, you will say the same to me.

* * *

Within moments of lying in bed with Sophia curled over his body, Alistair’s breathing evened and he was sleeping peacefully. However, Sophia could not sleep.

She was astonished at the intensity of his feelings for her—and worse, of her feelings for him.

She rose from the bed, put on her wrap, and walked to her bathroom, looking at her reflection in the mirror.

It was the certainty of her own feelings that caused her so much inner turmoil. She picked up her hairbrush and brushed her long hair, the repeated movements giving her mind room to analyze the last few days.

As always happened late at night, eleven faces appeared to haunt her.

* * *

Doutora Sophia?”

Sophia slowly pulled her eyes away from the rolling waves as her driver’s soft voice reached her from far away. “Sim, Gilberto?”

All the mirrors and photographs in the huge penthouse were covered with white sheets in the Jewish mourning tradition.

Sophia, however, was enclosed in her own black shroud, sitting on a reclining chair under the shade of an enormous parasol. The sling that held her left arm was also black. The only jewelry she allowed herself was a slim white gold necklace with Gabriel’s wedding ring hanging from it.

Gilberto eyed Sophia’s face, thin and haggard as he had never seen before. Sophia’s normally clear and happy eyes were dark and dulled. Her face was so pale and her skin so translucent that she looked like a ghost. Her hair was simply braided, hanging down her back. Her normally beautiful nails were unpolished.

She didn’t sleep, unless under the effect of drugs; she didn’t eat unless Claudia, her former nanny, begged and practically cried; she didn’t talk, but when strictly necessary. And Gilberto would bet all his money that yesterday, when she was told that her husband was dead, she would have killed herself if not for Gabriela.

“Doutora Sophia, one of my brothers still lives in Rocinha. You know that, don’t you?” Every night, Gilberto said a prayer thanking his bosses for the nice little house they had bought for him in Botafogo. His family was much safer out of the slum, and he could work without having to worry about them so much.

She blinked and shook her head slowly. “Still?” Sophia cringed inside at the sound of her hoarse voice. “Tell him to look for somewhere to live. I don’t want anyone from your family still living there, Gilberto.”

“I will.” The black man smiled sadly when he heard proof of the horrible nightmares that assaulted Sophia every night. Sophia’s screams were so loud, everyone in the household knew about them. “Yesterday, twelve men crossed the woods over the top of the hill from Vidigal. They camped near Rocinha’s border. One of the policemen, who busted the house where Doutor Gabriel was, lives in Rocinha too. And he recognized them this morning. My brother phoned me as soon as he heard the rumors.”

Sophia blinked again, not understanding what Gilberto meant. Encouraging him to continue, she whispered, “And?”

Gilberto dropped onto his haunches and looked into Sophia’s eyes. With an ominous voice he said, “Doutora Sophia, it’s them. It’s your chance to avenge Doutor Gabriel’s death. You know the police is not going up there.”

Gabriel. Sophia’s lips curled down and she blinked quickly to whisk away the tears. She knew nothing could bring him back. She swallowed hard and struggled with her decision “I won’t have their deaths on my hands. That decision belongs to God alone.”

“But—”

She leaned over and she whispered to her driver, “But I’ll pay a hundred-thousand dollars for their left ring fingers.”

Gilberto stood and nodded. “Consider it done, Doutora Sophia. My brother will speak with the head of the drug cartel and give the order. If you’ll excuse me.”

“Gilberto, please, one more thing.”

“Anything.”

Sophia sat erect, a fevered light appearing in her eyes. “I want them to know who ordered it. I want them to know what they made Gabriel suffer.” A dark smile spread on her face. “I want them to fear me for the rest of their lives.”

She reclined back on the chair, as if she had said the most normal thing in the world.